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SUMMARY:A retelling of the Quantum Mechanics story - John Ellis\, Surface 
 Physics Group\, Cavendish Laboratory
DTSTART:20250522T140000Z
DTEND:20250522T150000Z
UID:TALK226333@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Stephen Walley
DESCRIPTION:Typical accounts of Quantum Mechanics plot a path to the quant
 um world starting from a classical mechanics view point - 'how do we trans
 late momentum into an operator' etc - \, but this is fundamentally the wro
 ng way round: it is impossible to derive an exact theory from an approxima
 tion so any attempt to do so results in a story with no coherence or subst
 ance in the way it is told. Here I propose an account that simply starts w
 ith the observations of how quantum systems behave\, adding in special rel
 ativity\, to develop the basic formalism and concepts of QM and show signi
 ficant tracks of physics can be developed from just a few initial observat
 ions. A candidate is presented for the 'simplest possible measurement'\, p
 roposing that there is no need for either an observer or a measurement dev
 ice and suggesting that all quantum measurements are essentially an identi
 cal and remarkably simple\, semi understandable\, yet inexplicable\, QM pr
 ocess.\nThe basic premise of this approach is that if we are ever to exten
 d our understanding of\, for example\, measurement and collapse\, we need 
 a clearer understanding of what we have in QM and on what it is based rath
 er than 'we make these unconnected guesses from classical mechanics\, this
  is where we end up and\, oh look\, it works'\, and whilst the author woul
 d not pretend to be delivering 'the answer'\, the hope is that this exampl
 e of an attempt to do so will encourage others to consider developing more
  transparent explanations of the fundamentals of QM.
LOCATION:Seminar Room West\, Room A0.015\, Ray Dolby Centre\, Cavendish La
 boratory
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